


Every Broken Enemy Will Know

by sasha_b



Category: King Arthur (2004)
Genre: Angst, Canon Divergence, Gen, M/M, Post Movie, implied Arthur/Lancelot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-11
Updated: 2018-04-11
Packaged: 2019-04-21 17:46:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,881
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14290077
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sasha_b/pseuds/sasha_b
Summary: Post the last battle.  Arthur discovers something new about Lancelot.





	Every Broken Enemy Will Know

**Author's Note:**

> Some canon divergence, but mostly the same. Implied Arthur/Lancelot

Arthur watched as Tristan’s body was washed and wrapped. The scout was white and still, and Arthur didn't like it. He didn't like the quiet or the immobility; Tristan had been slippery and deadly and silent, but he’d never been still. Arthur hated it, truth be told.

The medicus and the women assistants finished, and left the commander alone with the body of his man. The valetudinarium was empty – the wounded were too numerous to keep them in the small building, and they moaned into the night as they were cared for as quickly as they were able to be. Arthur had walked through the crowd of Woads – the crowd of his people – and had personally checked on as many as he could. They had lost numerous folk, but the Saxons had lost more, and that’s what mattered. Merlin had smiled, sinuous and gap toothed, and Arthur had shuddered, moving on quickly as the smoke from the burning fields had obscured what he could see of the sky. Merlin had hailed him a king, and Arthur had ignored it; not now, not today. He had agreed to it, but…not today.

He touched the soft, clean skin over Tristan’s eyes, and stared at the face that had been so often obscured by hair and tattoos. It was strange to see the face clear of obstruction. Arthur hadn’t seen that face since Tristan had been a boy, but even then, he’d been marked and Arthur wondered for the thousandth time why he’d never had the courage to ask the other man about his facial tattoos and what they had meant.

_His tribe. His family. His story to tell._

Gawain had shrugged and moved on to telling Arthur about the cattle raiders they’d run down the day before, and Arthur hadn’t pressed, a tiny smile quirking the side of his mouth at Gawain’s tactful way of changing the subject.

Arthur lingered, looking down at Tristan’s body, afraid to go into the next room. He tried to imagine he was taking his time honoring Tristan’s memory, but had he heard that, Tristan would have raised eyebrows and shoved Arthur summarily toward where he was dreading to go. The scout had been the scout for a reason.

He knew things, and Arthur wished to God and all his angels that Tristan was here now to know _this,_ to know what he should do next.

Or how to do it, really.

He took the sheet that covered the bottom half of Tristan’s body in his cold fingers, and lay it gently over the dead knight’s face. He worked his mouth, but nothing would come, and Arthur bit his lip until the tang of blood worked its way down the back of his throat.

He was sorry. So sorry it had come to this, even though he knew what the others would say.

_They chose their own fate._

They.

He closed his eyes briefly and remembered the face of the boy, dark hair and tattoos and his ever present hawk, the one he’d trained from a hatchling, and he _did_ honor Tristan’s memory and sacrifice, even though he knew it wasn’t enough or what the other man would have wanted.

He turned and faced the door of the other room, muscles twitching under his dirty and torn tunic and leathers. His armor he had shed as soon as he’d been able, its constraints too much for him after the battle had been won. He wished he’d been able to fight like Guinevere’s people, bodies thrown into the fray almost naked, but then Arthur was Roman and no matter what Merlin or his daughter said, Arthur would be Roman _and_ British and he would take the island and rule it as he saw fit, using his training and background and yet learning new ways, like maybe not having to fight wearing so much heavy steel and God, he didn’t want to go in there.

_Scared?_

The humor laced, dark toned voice in his head forced him to shake himself over, a wet, starving dog, fear of what was to come halting him in his tracks. The whole hospital building was deadly silent, although he could hear the injured, their cries flying on the wind to him

_a strong east wind, Arthur_

and he cursed and shoved the door open to the other small room that held the other body.

He took the steps to the dead man woodenly and stood over him, his body also washed and naked, covered with a sheet halfway down as Tristan’s had been. Arthur wasn’t sure if it was night or day anymore, and despite his gorge rising at this - _you are scared, aren’t you?_ he looked at the knight’s unmoving form on the table.

The hole in his chest was cleaned and had stopped bleeding, but it was large and angry and Arthur sucked in a breath, a sob, a _something_ he couldn’t name and reached an involuntary hand out, touching the ragged edge of the thing. He couldn’t control himself. Such a strange thing, really, to cause the cessation of life, the cessation of joy and sorrow and anger and every bit of what had made the other man _alive_.

Guinevere had told him what had happened, even though at the time Arthur hadn’t wanted to hear, hadn’t believed something so insignificant as a simple bolt of wood could cause _this_ , but it had. And she had told him, and he’d wept without noticing for the second time as the other knights had raised his lieutenant off the scorched, blood soaked earth and had carried him away from Arthur. His head had flopped back once before Gawain could stop it, shifting the body in his arms so there was some support, but Arthur had seen the open, staring eyes, had seen the hair hanging lank and dirty, had seen the lack of movement and fresh tears had drowned him, had torn his face and mind to shreds and he looked down again at Lancelot’s body on the table and it was as if

As if

As if he’d never even _been._

His face like Tristan’s was clean and his hair was pushed back from his forehead, and Arthur started to see a mark over Lancelot’s left ear – a shaved patch of skull and without being able to stop himself he tilted the dead man’s head to the side and leaned over him, smelling the weird, embalming like smell, but he could smell the blood also, and he again tore his lip with his teeth.

A tiny circular pattern decorated the side of Lancelot’s skull, a spiral done in black, and he remembered, a bolt of lightning, one of Bors’ children asking Tristan to _mark me like you!_

_No, little one. They are warrior’s markings, to protect us in battle and beyond. They are for the eyes of an enemy, so they know to fear us. So they know what we are._

_I pray you never need them._

“Jesus,” he said out loud, the sound of the curse shocking him enough so that he drew back, away from Lancelot’s body and the black ink that hadn’t been there even that morning. Or that had been hidden by Lancelot’s helmet and hair, and he hadn’t told Arthur about it, when he’d ridden to be by Arthur’s side at the last.

And he cursed again, because he recognized the symbol, and its meaning – it was ancient and something he’d seen on his mother’s people when he’d been young, a spiral, something the warriors of his mother’s tribe had been decorated with.

“A labyrinth,” he said into the chill air, and it echoed in the cold room, so cold but surely Lancelot didn't care since he was gone from Arthur.

A labyrinth on Lancelot’s skin, to protect the wearer, and to show that life and death were always intertwined. A labyrinth hidden by hair and Arthur shouted, his _futete_ loud and angry and his tears raged again, shredded his face and dripped to his tunic and he wondered just why Lancelot had done this, and when. And why he’d not told Arthur about it.

_You be my friend now, and do not dissuade me._

“Great Christ,” he sighed, the tears slowed to a crawl, and he gently moved Lancelot’s head back into alignment with his body, the tattoo almost unseen when the other man’s hair slipped back into place over his ear. Night had fallen for certain, for Arthur could hear the lighting of the torches and could hear voices murmuring, wondering how long he’d be inside the valetudinarium and wondering how he’d be now that his lieutenant and

_Is this Rome’s quest? Or Arthur’s?_

He jerked, and realized something.

He looked down at Lancelot for the last time. The other man’s fire was gone, gone the second he’d died, and Arthur knew this was only an earthly shell. He touched Lancelot’s forehead as he’d touched Tristan’s, and then the hole in Lancelot’s chest once more.

He touched the labyrinth tattoo over Lancelot’s ear as well, and then covered the other man’s face with the sheet that had been pooled around his waist. Torches continued to crackle from outside and Arthur turned in his boots, dirty and gore spattered, and left the rooms that held the bodies of his best and most talented men.

Merlin and Guinevere were waiting for him, but so were Gawain and Galahad. Bors he could see standing off in the distance with his family surrounding him, and Arthur could smile at that. It _was_  night, and the breeze that had sprung up had cleared off some of the smoke from the grass fires. The men of fortress Camboglanna were clearing and burning the Saxon bodies, and as Arthur stepped toward the small group of people waiting for him, he blinked and thought on what he’d realized.

_Why does he wear them?_

_His tribe, his family. His story to tell._

_Lancelot._

_Arthur. I’m not going to tell you. He can if you ask. Suffice it to say, all men can choose to be equal under the rules of life and death. It’s all a circle, you know. One you can never get lost in._

_A bit like your table, come to think of it._

He smiled, his lip that he’d bitten so much cracking and bleeding a bit, and Gawain touched his arm when he came flush with the others. Stars were visible and the night was much cooler than the Hell they’d created earlier.

“Arthur?”

“I’m fine,” he answered, and – he was, and he wasn't. “We’ll bury them in the morning. And we’ll wait for a strong wind to the east.”

Gawain nodded, and if he understood or not, Arthur didn't care.

Merlin stepped in front of Arthur, his skin still stained blue with the juice of the plants his people – Arthur’s people, now – used to mark themselves warriors. Guinevere too was still marked, and Arthur looked from Merlin to her, and then at his remaining knights.

“Life and death are one, Arthur,” Merlin rumbled suddenly. “It’s your story to tell, now.”

Arthur laughed at the unexpected words, a bright barking sound, and he canted eyes up to the sky, wondering at the final joke Lancelot had played on him.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm feeling really out-written in this fandom, which I hope is not the case, but I've been struggling blah blah as per usual (although this time it's been many years since I've been able to write two things in two weeks). This isn't super original as I've told this scene before, but was hit with this earlier and thought to take advantage of whatever came. 
> 
> Title comes from the song Indestructible by Disturbed.
> 
> All lines from King Arthur are not written by me.
> 
> Thank you to all KA fans still out there. I will always love these dudes and I hope they speak to me forever in whatever way they choose.


End file.
